


all is quiet in the clearing

by slyther_ing



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Love, Non-Linear Narrative, Romance, this is very purple prose but yolo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 12:15:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20275756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slyther_ing/pseuds/slyther_ing
Summary: His one regret, at the end of it all, is that he cannot turn back time and bring them both to the nights when Dora had settled into the deep slumber of a baby and they had watched her ever changing hair.





	all is quiet in the clearing

When Ted Tonks dies, he thinks about Andromeda.

***

On the hottest day of the school year, Andromeda sets off a cauldron fire in the closed potions classroom on accident. She’s obscenely calm throughout the whole thing, watching the flames curl up and lick at her cauldron in increasing fervor . Ted’s partner coughs and curses under his breath, but all Ted can do is watch Andromeda’s eyes track the movement of the result of her magic, until Sllughorn stamps it out with a wave of his wand and shushes them back to work. 

“That was something else,” Ted says to her later that day, when they’re sitting out by the lake with their ankles entwined. “Where’d you learn that?”

“It was an accident,” Andromeda says, looking in that light very much like her older sister. Ted imagines it’s the words that draw that out - a familiar phrase lingering on Bellatrix’s lips at every turn of cruelty.

He’s known Andromeda for all seven years at Hogwarts, Bellatrix for three, Narcissa for a measly two. Sometimes Ted catches the familiarity between the sisters in the cut of her tone, in the way Dromeda ties her hair - she has the same smile as Narcissa, the same coloring as Bellatrix; sometimes when she frowns, he sees the disapproval of a long generation. 

Better men than Ted have kept their distance, but he’s a quick learner. Knows better than this.

“It was frightful,” Ted continues, brushing a speck of lint off of her skirt. “Brilliant, though. Who knew Slughorn could jump that high?”

She laughs, rough and vibrant, and all trace of her sisters disappear.

***

The four days it takes Andromeda to make her decision are simultaneously the shortest and longest of Ted’s life. He’s parked himself out at his mum’s house, because the cottage is cozy and familiar and just easy enough to get out of his head. He’d asked for her hand, knowing full well that everything he was was another point against him - a muggleborn, a Hufflepuff, much more adept with his hands than with his wand. 

The thing is, she’d said yes. Then no. Then had looked out of the window of Fortescue’s ice cream shop and bit her lip and looked close to tears. 

“Actually,” Ted said, “Forget I said anything. Dromeda - love, don’t worry. I understand.”

“You’re silly,” she said, tapping the back of his hand with a clean spoon. “Do you mean it?”

They’d parted with the ball in her court, with the answer lingering in the air. He’d known that it could’ve been the last time he saw her, and yet there was something reassuring in the way she’d curled her fingers around his wrist, to pull him in to kiss his cheek. 

Then it had been four days of long, long silence. 

She comes up to him on the morning of the fifth day, as he’s working on his mum’s garden, hands deep in the dirt. The ground is damp from dew and caking underneath his nails. She’s starkly out of place in her fine robes, a figurehead of velvet and sharp lines amidst the lushness of the flowers around her. 

“Hello, love,” Ted says in greeting, wiping a bead of sweat off the bridge of his nose, “I have to say, I’m a bit worried to hear your answer.”

Andromeda settles into the grass, cross-legged, picks up one of the loose bulbs and hands it to him. 

“I don’t know anything about plants,” she says instead of anything direct, “You’ll be the only one to tend to the garden, unfortunately.”

“Well, fuck me then,” Ted says, grin splitting across his face so quickly he feels his jaw crack.

***

Years later, he’s softened out with age. When Dora comes home, she pokes him in the stomach, giggles at him. It’s protection, a warmth, a sign that there’s food on the table and a place to return to. Andromeda tuts at both of them under her breath while they make a mess of the dinner table, while they team up against her and tease her until the corner of her mouth twitches.

The night before You-Know-Who returns, before they realize their whole world is turning off-kilter, they split a piece of chocolate cake over their kitchen sink. It’s slightly stale, but the icing is enough to cover it up and Ted teases her with his fork, going for the sections she aims for. 

“I wish Dora came home more often,” he tells Andromeda.

“Because that’s when I make this cake.” She replies. “Thank goodness she doesn’t. You’d have a million cavities.”

He grins, stealing the last bite of icing. She puts the plate into the sink with a careful clink of porcelain, hands him the sponge in such a practiced gesture that he doesn’t even have to look to feel it against his palm. 

“I wish she wouldn’t keep her hair pink,” she says, sighing. “But maybe I’m just old and traditional.”

He shrugs. “She’s having fun, love.”

“Yes,” Andromeda says, and then drifts off. She retreats, bites her tongue when she’s thinking. He’s patient for it, knows she’ll reemerge when she’s settled on something worth phrasing. 

He’s drying the dishes when Dromeda says, “I hope she knows I’m proud of her.”

“She does,” he says, placing the last of the bowls back into the cupboard. The handle is loose, he’s reminded, making a mental note to take care of it before the weekend is over. “But it’s always well worth reminding her.”

“So wise,” she laughs, hip-checking him. She taps her wand against the loose handle and it shudders for a moment before a  _ chnk _ indicates that it’s tightened appropriately. “There. The light’s on you to replace, though.”

Her eyes are dark and glittering in the dimly lit kitchen, and when she says, “Well, as a reminder - I love you”, he replies, “You never have to worry with me” and means it.

***

Ted has lived in the wizarding world long enough that he knows time is limited. The direness of the situation at hand doesn’t escape him. And all he knows, Andromeda knows better. She’s lived with it like a monster under the bed, embossed into her skin, for the entirety of her life. 

“You remember what I told you?” She says on the last night, tying and retying the knot closing his rucksack. “You remember what I said?”

“Everything,” he reassures her, “It’ll be alright, love. Dora got some of her skills from her old man, after all.”

Even now, at this, he can make her smile. 

“And here I thought it was all me,” she says softly. Her hand lingers on the bag before passing it to him. There’s a finality to this - they’re not young, not naive, not hopeful. The war is a different creature than it used to be. That’s not to say they won’t put up a good fight, but they understand the odds better than when they were kids. 

“Come back to me,” Dromeda says, kissing him briefly on the lips, then longer, when he dips down to allow her to reach his forehead. “In whichever way.”

“I will,” he promises. “Take care of yourself.”

***

His one regret, at the end of it all, is that he cannot turn back time and bring them both to the nights when Dora had settled into the deep slumber of a baby and they had watched her ever changing hair. 

When he dies, in that split second of green light, he sees her in familiar velvet robes, in a scene too lush to be anything but wild. Dromeda - Romy - Meda - Andy. Her names taste like star anise on his tongue.

In the fissure between living and across, he sinks into the limbo of the sweet peas of his mum’s garden, of the willow trees from Hogwarts ground. 

Waits.

**Author's Note:**

> one day i was washing the dishes and was hit with the first line and was like "of all the love stories, how have i not written about tedromeda" and well. here we are.


End file.
